DeMo, GST, and now chartered accountants

Although the PM said some nice pro-forma things about CAs, I do not recall any non-election speech of his that had so much bluntness and such thinly-veiled criticism of anyone.The exception would probably be his TV address announcing demonetisation, which makes sense because the underlying driver was the same on that occasion too. This speech received only cursory mention in the mass media, but has excited a lot of comment as well as consternation among CAs.

During his address, the PM unambiguously laid his finger on the nation's CAs as the prime facilitators of black money generation. He made sharply mocking comments about how busy CAs were during the demonetisation period and how CAs cancelled expensive foreign holidays to work roundthe-clock, wondering what was it exactly that they were busy with.

He then said, in a most threatening tone, that evidence against three lakh firms had been unearthed through data mining and that one lakh companies had been struck off the register of companies He wondered who could facilitate such activities and certified such companies' accounts?

Twice during his speech he spoke about the inherent conflicts of interest in the ICAI's extensive powers. He said ICAI-made up and elected by CAs themselves--has the power to set the CA curriculum, conduct CA exams, certify CA's fitness to practice their profession, to judge whether they had committed any violations and then punish the guilty. Yet, only 25 CAs and been found guilty of malpractice in the past 11 years while 1,400 cases were pending.

The most significant aspect of the speech was that both times he mentioned the ICAI's broad powers, he referred to them rather pointedly as granted by parliament. I'm sure ICAI's bigwigs present at the venue are wise enough to understand what Modi was reminding them of -if parliament can grant these powers, then it can take them away too.